Paraphytoseius horrifer (Pritchard & Baker)

Kreiter, Serge, Abo-Shnaf, Reham I. A. & Payet, Rose-My, 2020, Phytoseiid mites of Mayotte Island (Acari: Mesostigmata), Acarologia 60 (3), pp. 622-642 : 625-627

Paraphytoseius horrifer (Pritchard & Baker)

Amblyseius (Ptenoseius) horrifer Pritchard & Baker 1962: 295 .

Amblyseius horrifer, Meyer & Rodrigues 1966: 30 .

Amblyseius (Paraphytoseius) horrifer, van der Merwe 1968: 169 .

Proprioseius (Paraphytoseius) horrifer, Karg 1983: 302 .

Paraphytoseius horrifer, Moraes et al. 1986: 105, 2004: 152 ; Beard 2001: 84; Chant & McMurtry 2003a: 37, 2007: 53.

In all of our specimens of Paraphytoseius , setae S5 are absent. So according to Chant and McMurtry (2003b), they belong to the orientalis species group. According also to these previous authors, and Moraes et al. (2007), we consider that P. horrifer and P. orientalis (Narayanan, Kaur & Ghai) are different valid species. Our specimens with longer setae s4, Z4,

Z5, and with no distinctly short, thick, spatulate macroseta on genu I belongs to the former species. This species is widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. The biology of P. horrifer remains totally unknown. It was recently recorded for the first time from several countries: Mauritius ( Kreiter and Abo-Shnaf 2020b), La Réunion ( Kreiter et al. 2020c), Rodrigues ( Kreiter and Abo-Shnaf 2020a) and Vietnam (Kreiter et al. 2020b).

World distribution: Benin, DR Congo, Ghana, India, Kenya, La Réunion Island, Madagascar Island, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda.

Specimens examined: 11 specimens in total, 7 ♀♀ + 4 ♂. Coconi , Maison de L’Office National des Forêts (156 m aasl, 12°50 ′ 1 ″ S, 45°8 ′ 5 ″ E), 1 ♀ + 1 ♂ on Cananga odorata L. ( Annonaceae ) and 4 ♀♀ + 1 ♂ on an unknown host plant, 24/XI/2018 ; Miréréni (356 m aasl, 12°47 ′ 45 ″ S, 45°9 ′ 28 ″ E), 1 ♀ + 2 ♂♂ on Rubus alceifolius Poiret (Rosaceae) ; Coconi , Lycée Agricole (189 m aasl, 12°50 ′ 7 ″ S, 45°8 ′ 11 ″ E), 1 ♀ on R. alceifolius , 26/XI/2018 .

Remarks: morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements fit well with those provided by Kreiter et al. (2020b, c). This species described from Africa ( Pritchard and Baker 1962) was first mentioned in the Indian Ocean from La Réunion Island ( Kreiter et al. 2020c), but seems to be present in several other investigated islands ( Kreiter and Abo-Shnaf 2020a, b).